


this is your heart, can you feel it

by divingbell



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, some honey nut feelios, year 3 mankai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26553517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingbell/pseuds/divingbell
Summary: Banri goes out for his birthday.
Relationships: Hyoudou Juuza/Settsu Banri
Comments: 30
Kudos: 128





	this is your heart, can you feel it

**Author's Note:**

> I sat down and said "I want to write clingy drunk Banri" and then I did. Title is from [here](https://youtu.be/GmXsbw6-FK4)  
> This one goes out to pinni who puts up with my brain worms on a daily. Thank u king for your service  
> edit: AAAAAHHHH SO MANY TYPOS, SORRY. I didn't sleep. F

Banri's life very nearly ends on a Monday evening three days before his twentieth birthday, when he announces his plans for the weekend and his absolute traitor of a drinking buddy exposes him to the only adult in his life he'd admit (under duress) to being intimidated by.

"Wait a sec. Didn't you go drinking, like, last week?" Kazunari looks up from his phone, sprawling further over the couch as if Tsuzuru isn't currently trying to become one with the cushions next to him. "You sure you don't wanna do something different?"

"No I didn't," lies Banri, hoping against hope that Kazunari will take the damn hint and drop the subject. Unfortunately, his friend is blessed with high intelligence but all the tact of a large bag of bricks, and misses the memo entirely by _pulling up the evidence on his phone in front of the entire fucking living room._

"Aw, c'mon, yes you did! I literally tagged you in my Insta story, here, look—"

"You did _what_ last week?" Sakyo turns the full force of his murderous gaze from the papers spread across the kitchen table to Banri himself, and it is only the Director's perfectly-honed sense of timing borne of running what is essentially a frat house for actors that spares him from being murdered at the tender age of nineteen and three-quarters (and/or grounded for the first time by someone who isn't even related to him.)

"Pot meet kettle, Sakyo. You definitely started drinking earlier than that."

"Did I?"

"When _did_ you first touch alcohol, then?" Izumi grins, reaching across the table for one of the cookies Omi's left cooling near them. Sakyo clams up almost instantly, more because of the Director's proximity to him than the question itself, and Banri sighs in relief but only in his head because it would be extremely uncool otherwise.

(Alas, pride goeth before the fall.)

"Besides, even if he did hypothetically happen to come across some alcohol, I'm sure baby's first hangover would have taught him not to do it again," continues Izumi cheerfully. "Right, Banri?"

"I don't get hangovers," says Banri smugly. Homare was the one who woke up in someone else's bathroom with no shirt and two pairs of pants, not him.

"Oohh, nevermind. I'm gonna kill you." Izumi stuffs an entire cookie in her mouth and stands up from the table with more murder in her eyes than a boss in a Last Fantasy XIV dungeon.

"You should probably get outta here," advises Kazunari, grinning like the entire thing isn't his fault in the first place.

"I hope you drop your phone on your face," retorts Banri, and runs for his life.

And so, that Friday night, Autumn Troupe sans their single middle-schooler piles into the train at the tail end of rush hour and rides a few stations past Veludo Way to a karaoke place with favorable reviews from Twitter, Instagram and Homare (ft. dramatic reenactment of the night that landed him in a bathtub in the next city over.) Banri doesn't really get why everyone is so insistent on him picking a specific place and says as much, because all karaoke spots have a bar and some mics and the same too-bright lighting so it shouldn't be that different, right? Taichi calls him a heathen who doesn't realise there's a certain _je ne sans quoi_ with these kinds of things, butchering the French so badly that Banri spends the next ten minutes in stitches on the floor. Juza steps wordlessly over his prone body on his way to consume his body weight in whatever sweet Omi's made this time, but pauses in the doorway at the discussion of the weekend.

"Karaoke?"

"Yes, karaoke, don't tell me you've never been—wait." Banri sits up, gleeful. "Of course not, you're too busy keeping a running list of the cutest cafes in the city. There's a new place that just opened up a few stations down, by the way, they got fall specials on now—"

"...Didn't have anyone to go with," mutters Juza, almost too low to hear, and something unpleasant twists in Banri's stomach at his expression. 

"Well," says Banri into the sudden silence, and clears his throat to try again, "well, uh. Better clear your schedule this Friday, 'cause now you do."

Juza's eyebrows go into his hairline and stay there. "Settsu, you askin' me out or something?"

"Wh— _NO,_ " shouts Banri, flushing to the roots of his hair. "It's my _birthday,_ you idiot, everyone's invited—do you fucking _think_ before you speak, holy shit—"

Taichi absolutely loses it, and the rest of the room quickly follows suit. Even Omi looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh. 

"Well, in Juza's defense..."

"NO," repeats Banri, and storms out of the living room.

And, see, that's another thing about his birthday. If anyone asks what Banri's plans are for the weekend, he can say that he's going to celebrate with friends, which is something he never really thought he needed per se until he stood for a curtain call and was blindsided with the realization that he would trust the people standing at his side both on this stage and off it. The point, really, is that Banri knows quite a few people now, and there's an uncharacteristic warmth behind his ribs at the thought that he is in turn cared for. It's...nice.

"Oi, you comin' or what?" Juza scowls at him.

_Aaaaand there it goes._

Banri mutters something rude and rushes to catch up.

* * *

Several drinks later, the world has gained a sort of pleasant fuzziness attributed largely to either those rising in the waking hours of the morning or the spectacularly drunk. Banri thinks he might fall into the latter category, although he's sure his alcohol tolerance was higher last time he checked. For now, he's not checking much of anything, focused as he is on the lyrics of whatever he's singing and definitely not on the five or six phones pointed in his direction; he's not quite as drunk as some of the others, but Sakyo has started giving him a chilling stare every time he so much as reaches for the menu. 

The song ends and Banri basks in the attention of his adoring audience, which is mostly a handful of his classmates from school lured in by Kazunari and a Tsuzuru who was also lured in by Kazunari. Banri's own troupe and two-fifths of Winter are in various states of sobriety around the room (sans Taichi, who is somehow asleep in Omi's lap despite the noise. A distant part of Banri really hopes no one let him touch alcohol, but their esteemed director is currently drinking Tasuku and Tsumugi under the table at the same time, so that's one designated adult down for the count.)

 _She's going to have a nasty hangover,_ thinks Banri.

"Oh, shut up," calls Izumi cheerily, which is around the point where Banri realizes not all of his thoughts are staying in his head. Dangerous, because the warm and fuzzy feeling in his chest is starting to leak out around the edges and it's way too soon in the evening for him to share that with anyone. Ever. Where's Hyodo, maybe bullying him will make Banri feel better about his life—

"You say somethin'?" 

"Hi," says Banri, grinning from where he's sprawled, catlike, across two seats. See, better already. 

Juza is frowning down at him, telegraphing concern but doing his best not to show it, and Banri wonders when he got to know the curve of Juza's scowl like the back of his own hand. If he's being honest with himself, the answer's right there already; it's spelled out in the way their fights have gone from full-on brawls over the slightest offense to messy roughhousing when someone's sweet tooth supersedes Banri's name written on the last cup of pudding in the fridge, scribbled across flyers from cafes and upcoming festivals conveniently dropped near the other's desk, and packed neatly into a first-aid kit that doesn't see much use these days but remains fully-stocked anyway. 

The last one is perhaps the most damning, because the day Banri's high school past caught up with him in an alleyway after classes was also the first time in his life someone else patched him up after a fight.

("You should see the other guys," Banri had joked, then, trying to dispel some of the weirdly anticipatory tension between them, and Juza's lips pressed together in a very thin line as he pressed a plaster to the bridge of Banri's nose. Then he ignored Banri for three days straight, which was honestly very mean and unfair of him.)

Juza's distracted again by something, most likely the impending argument over the song queue, so Banri takes the opportunity to really study his rival's profile. The neon lights of the karaoke booth generally don't lend much to anyone in the way of aesthetics, but for some reason it works for Juza specifically, bright blue and hot pink contrasting nicely with the violet hue of his hair and framing his jawline in a way that sober Banri will deny he's ever thought of as attractive. The only person who would probably catch him looking and subsequently roast him for it is too young to even appear in the vicinity of a karaoke bar, much less drink, and Banri wonders why all of the middle-schoolers in Mankai are so mean to him specifically. 

Juza stares down at him. "The hell are you talking about?"

"None of your business," retorts Banri snidely, and then feels a little bad because that one was kind of his fault for saying things instead of thinking them. 

Juza mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like _see if I give a damn next time you embarrass yourself_ , and Banri pretends not to hear this in favor of focusing his efforts on a new goal: making it to the soft serve machine unscathed. Thankfully, his mode of egress is mostly clear. Kazunari and Tsuzuru have finally been bullied off the stage by Izumi, who is currently singing a drunken duet with Sakyo, and almost everyone is recording them for posterity and/or blackmail. Banri wonders if Kazunari actually remembered to log out of the company Inste before posting things.

Soft serve in hand, Banri returns to Juza's side. His companion stares at him in utter confusion.

"What the hell is this?"

"It's ice cream, duh," Banri replies imperiously.

"Yeah, but…" Juza looks from Banri to the tray in his hands and back. "Why did you get so many?"

"You like strawberry, right? Plus, you were probably gonna get five of them anyway, I saw you side eyeing the machine when we went in." Banri huffs, equal parts smug because he's right and annoyed because Juza is still looking at him like he's the world's biggest idiot instead of praising him for his thoughtfulness or something else grossly out of character. 

(There's a strange expression in Juza's eyes, a dawning understanding as he opens his mouth, and Banri's stomach lurches at the realization that whatever the other is about to say is something he wants to remember in the morning.)

Later, Banri will blame it on the coordination issues caused by four drinks in one night, but the unfortunate truth of the matter is that he crawls into Juza's lap entirely of his own accord and accepts that everyone in this room now has a delightful shot at blackmailing him.

Kazunari howls with glee, the obnoxious laughter of another person whose sobriety has completely failed them. "Oh, so you're _drunk_ drunk!"

"You're not far behind!" Tsuzuru retorts, tugging the mic from his hands, and the room dissolves into chaos around them. 

Banri tunes out the noise in favor of wrapping his arms around the other's waist. Juza is warm and solid and smells nice, a hint of cinnamon and sugar like the desserts he's always eating when he thinks nobody's looking, and even though he can sense the other's neck heating up with a wicked flush there is a pair of arms around him keeping him steady. The nice part about finally being able to face the person at your back is realizing they've been looking at you all along.

"I'm cutting you off," says Juza, muffled, and Banri merely hums and tucks himself closer.

* * *

(He doesn't remember much after that.)

* * *

Banri wakes up in his room with Juza's face mere inches from his and almost screams.

Thankfully, years of experience have taught him that screaming is usually not the answer. Instead, he cautiously distances himself from the sleeping face of his ~~closest friend~~ sworn enemy as he does a perfunctory check under the covers. He is not in possession of a pair of pants, which is unfortunate, but he's at least wearing a shirt and boxers, so score one for the team of Not Making Horrible Fucking Decisions.

(He tries to ignore that most of the relief at knowing he didn't have drunk sex or something equally ridiculous is because he'd be mad if he didn't remember it and not simply from the sheer audacity of ever fucking Hyodo Juza. Or being fucked by, whatever, equal opportunity, the point is that it's _literally not happening, ever—)_

Of course, because today is very much not Banri's day, Juza picks this exact moment to wake up.

"Stop thinkin' so loud, it's too early. I hate people who don't get hangovers."

"Maybe I did get one this time and I'm just recovering, asshole," snipes Banri, but he's already settling back down into the covers. It's fucking cold in the mornings, September bringing with it the beginnings of a nose-biting chill, and Juza is a furnace of warmth he'd have to be stupid to ignore. He should really sleep here more often.

"No y're not," mumbles Juza, clearly still half-asleep. "You bragged about it las' night."

"Really," says Banri, because this is news to him. There is a huge hole in his memory after he cuddled up to Juza like a touch-starved cat, and _wow_ that's something he is absolutely not going to think about any more than he has to. "Interesting. What else did I do last night?"

"You…" Juza trails off, focusing blearily on Banri's face as he struggles to remember. "You wouldn't get off me until we got home and whined about bein' cold until I let you sleep here, so. Yeah. S' about it though."

"I see," says Banri flatly. Internally, he is screaming. Maybe screaming is the answer to some problems. Who knew.

"You done asking weird shit?" Juza is squinting balefully at him in the morning sun, hair sticking up in several directions at once. 

_Cute,_ Banri thinks, and then beats that thought down with a stick. "No."

"Too bad," mutters Juza, and reaches out of the covers to tug Banri closer. "Go back to sleep. I'm tired."

"Where's my goodnight kiss?" snarks Banri before his brain catches up with his mouth, and then backs up almost instantly. "Wait, uh, I mean—"

Juza kisses him before he can say anything, the lightest press of lips to Banri's own. There are no fireworks, or any big realizations; just the feeling of something finally settling in Banri's chest, satisfaction and contentment warming him from the inside out, wrapped up in the arms of someone who led him quite by accident to a place where he can finally belong.

"Gross," says Banri, already leaning in for another kiss, "do it again," and Juza rolls his eyes and obliges him.

" _Now_ will you go to sleep?"

"No." Banri grins at him. "Omi's making hangover breakfast."

"Oh," says Juza, suddenly much more alert, and bodily climbs over Banri to get to the ladder of the loft bed. Banri very pointedly does not think about how that makes him feel as he starts down after. 

(After all, they have all the time in the world to get there.)

**Author's Note:**

> :^) i like juban


End file.
